Battery Vent Adaptor Sealing for Mismatched Vent Tube Diameters
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
The existing vent tube designs for batteries often fail to create a proper seal with the vent aperture, leading to inefficient gas egress and gas leakage into undesired locations, due to mismatched diameters, making redesigns costly and labor-intensive.
Innovation Solution
A vent adaptor with a cylinder and seal system, featuring internal diameters matching the vent tube and incorporating teeth, tabs, or projections to secure within the vent aperture, along with ribs for prevention of egress, ensuring an air-tight seal.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Length of moving object
If the vent tube diameter is reduced to fit smaller vent apertures, then the vent tube can be inserted into the aperture, but an improper seal occurs between the vent tube and aperture
Solution Approach 1:
A vent adaptor is introduced as an intermediary component between the vent tube and vent aperture. The adaptor includes a body portion that fits within the vent aperture and a seal member that creates an air-tight seal around the vent tube, mediating the connection between mismatched components without requiring redesign of either the vent tube or aperture
Solution Approach 2:
The seal member is positioned locally at the interface between the vent tube and vent aperture to create a focused sealing zone. The seal member can be made of different material properties (e.g., softer, more compliant material) than the vent tube or aperture to enable effective sealing at this specific location
2Reliability
If the vent tube diameter is increased to match larger vent apertures, then a better seal may be achieved, but the vent tube becomes too large for smaller apertures
Solution Approach 1:
The vent adaptor is designed with universal applicability to work with vent tubes of different diameters and vent apertures of different sizes. The adaptor body can accommodate various vent tube diameters through its internal geometry, while the external diameter matches the vent aperture, making it a multi-functional solution that replaces multiple specialized vent tube designs
Solution Approach 2:
The adaptor serves as a universal intermediary that decouples the relationship between vent tube size and aperture size, allowing any vent tube to work with any aperture through the adaptor's matching interface
3Reliability
If redesign of the vent tube or vent aperture is performed to create a proper seal, then sealing performance improves, but the design and implementation becomes costly and labor-intensive
Solution Approach 1:
The vent adaptor is designed as a simple, inexpensive component that can be easily manufactured and installed. Rather than investing in costly redesigns of permanent components (vent tubes or apertures), the adaptor provides an affordable, replaceable solution that achieves the sealing function at minimal cost
Solution Approach 2:
The sealing function is segmented from the main vent tube and aperture structures, placing it in a separate, dedicated seal member within the adaptor. This allows the sealing function to be optimized independently without affecting the design or manufacturing of the vent tube or aperture
4Ease of operation
If a vent tube is inserted into a vent aperture with mismatched diameters, then insertion is possible, but gas egress efficiency decreases and gas may leak into undesired locations
Solution Approach 1:
The adaptor's body portion and seal member work together as intermediaries to guide gas flow efficiently from the vent tube through the adaptor and out the vent aperture, preventing gas leakage while maintaining high egress efficiency despite the original diameter mismatch
Data Source
AI summary
A vent adaptor for placement inside a vent aperture that is itself placed within a battery housing. The vent adaptor has a cylindrical portion and a seal to create a gas-tight seal around the vent aperture. Along the upper portion of the vent adaptor are teeth which function to lock the vent adaptor in various configurations depending on the number and orientation of the various teeth and their interaction with various indentations in the vent aperture. The cylindrical portion may also have ribs with various geometries spaced at particular intervals to prevent the egress of the vent adaptor from the vent aperture. The vent adaptor may have internal diameter of at least 5 millimeters to accommodate an appropriately sized vent tube. A batten 7 with a housing that contains a vent aperture and a vent adaptor located inside the vent aperture.